Thread by @Gurdur

I want to talk about Tanzania in a couple of different ways today, in several different threads. Medicine and village life. If you think I'm happily irresponsible, well I am, but it's also self-training for trips in Tanzania.

https://twitter.com/Gurdur/status/1328687394758029312

2/ In Tanzania, most people can get access to meds — IFF they've the money — but not to doctors. In the event of really needing a medico, they have to be either very rich, or stand in line for one of the numerous international aid doctors. Average wage in Tanzania: $2/day. Two.

3/ Give y'all one guess about the length of time you can expect to be waiting in line for a real medico to see you, almost free to you, because international aid. Yes, talk in *months* for most cases.

https://twitter.com/Gurdur/status/1328699616146108417

4/ A typical case, call him Peter. Peter was supposed to be a travel guide on a tour, part of the crew I would be travelling with. Except, Peter turned up with extremely bloodshot eyes, evidence of swelling. At much cost to himself, he was treating his eyes with cortisone cream

5/ I questioned him, turned out he had taken sand grains and metal fragments to the eyes at high velocity, driving or so. Cortisone cream wouldn't help him a bit, IMvHO.

6/ IFF you've money, you can get the meds (no prescription for anything at all needed; no access to doctors, remember?) Of course, you must know what meds you need. Whoops; >40% of meds sold over the counter in sub-Saharan Africa are fakes, made in China.

https://twitter.com/Gurdur/status/1328699616146108417

7/ I gave him a tube of antibiotic cream (a pharmacist friend later blasted me for not doing eye-friendly antibiotic preparations, but I didn't have any with me), & I rang around the place till I could make an appointment for him with a (free) ophthamologist.

8/ He finally got to see the ophthamologist, *just in time*, who burred out the fragments lodged in his corneas. The antibiotic cream saved his eyes till that moment (the mechanical burring out was of course vital).

https://twitter.com/Gurdur/status/1328702894091231233

9/ In essence, his life got saved. A tour guide or safari-driver in Tanzania makes very good cash, *relatively*. Give you one guess how it goes for a then-unemployed man, totally, permanently blind, in a Third World village where ZERO pensions or benefits of any kind exist.

10/ Tourists going to Tanzania are generally advised to take along with them a stack of their own IV needles & tubing, disposable hypodermics (in case of any accidents or illness), and so on; I do so. These make good gifts for when one leaves. I also carry a big med kit on travel

11/11 So call me happily irresponsible, it won't faze me at all, I am, I haz the self-insight. On the other hand, if you're in the lurch, and you've zero resources of the needed, well yeah, maybe I'm a really good bloke to know.

https://twitter.com/Gurdur/status/1328704147072356355

A couple of reminders that the possibility of accidents and sudden illnesses of any sort must always be kept in mind when on safari. You're not even going to dream of a GP, let alone an ambulance, in most of these regions.
My photo:

Reminder #2. I was vastly impressed that the local villages had roadside stalls on this particular mountain 'highway', selling hand-carved wooden, triangular wheel-chocks for all the passing-by trucks and semi-trailers, many of which had defective brakes.
My photo:

Reminder #3, my photo. This one on a sandwash-plagued dirt road. Who needs treacherous mountain road-hairpin-turns when you can just have a sudden sandwash on the road in front of you? Even for experienced drivers, encountering one is dangerous.

Reminder #4, my photo.
Folks, yes, I am mordant, I am morbid, I'm a doom-and-gloom Marshwiggle, no doubt about that. But I'm good value to have around in case of triffids, accidents, or aphasias, and I'm *very happily* morbid and mordant.

One last reminder. This was a photo taken of me by the safari driver, in a roadside village café. Yes, I was preparing a poisonous wild fruit to treat my bad toothache, because this is what I am like. The fruit was used by local Maasai in this way.

https://twitter.com/Gurdur/status/579560073690746880